“Women’s Studies: Great Expectations”

The January 29, 1987 issue of The Amherst Student contains an article celebrating the creation of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department. The writers contended that “the potential exists for the department to be a substantial contribution to an Amherst education,” and that there was a distinct need for the hiring of additional faculty to support the nascent department. They say that new faculty needn’t necessarily “work exclusively within the department,” but that new professors could work in a variety of fields within the College. For over twenty years, Amherst heeded to this advice, only hiring its first exclusively WAGS professor within the last two years. As receptive as student response was when the Women’s and Gender Studies Department was first established, today the College must push itself to strengthen the department further. Each year there remain few majors -even fewer thesis writers -within WAGS, relative to many other majors, despite students’ breadth of knowledge about gender issues school-wide.